In the western world it is. In other cultures sex isn't that important, or is just a fact of life. People are less frustrated by it, anyway. I don't say this is the case in every culture wich isn't the western one, but there are different possibilities. Don't go mistaken all cultures are the same or want to be the same...

I wonder if the discussion about women in music is as hard as here Is it typical a problem in western culture the gender and sexuality have to be an item in a discussion when art is the subject? Why is every male ballet dancer always a 'suspect' of being gay or at least a transsexual who is afraid of the operation

Still nobody has found any real argument about the question 'why are there so few women active in electronic music?'...

... I'd say the main reason is the fear of things that are "nerdy & technical." ... Because of the fear of things that are "too Macho & testosterone-ly." ...

So you are saying it's purely a psychologic reason? It sounds to me like an ego-centric statement: I want to participate, but it has to meet my standards first...
I can't believe this...

Wout

"egocentric"? What do you mean?

What's egocentric about "fear" that you don't belong or won't measure up?

Well I suppose everything is "egocentric" in that sense. It is always about "us" and our image of ourselves and what we think we can do._________________The most important music equipment is what's in front of the instrument.

Lets assume the reasons you mention are right and women want to make electronic music, then 'fear', also a psychologic topic, for the behavior of others will stop their efforts to reach their goal? That's no reason; that's an excuse...

Quote:

Well I suppose everything is "egocentric" in that sense. It is always about "us" and our image of ourselves and what we think we can do.

Well, a lot of 'us', 'we' and 'ourselves' in that sentence

I just want to say: women in electronic music, the world wants to hear you!

I wouldn't want to overlook the role of socialization either. Parents subtly influence their children's outlook, before they can even speak, by choices of clothing, toys, the encouragement or discouragement they give one hobby over another.

If boys prefer building blocks and toy cars and girls prefer dolls and E-Z-Bake ovens, how much of that is really their free choice? How much of it is due to the parents' subtle reinforcement of social and cultural norms of gender-appropriate behavior?

It's so hard for parents to overcome this too... my brother and his wife are pretty socially enlightened, but when their baby girl popped out a few years ago, it took no time at all for the pink clothes to show up. If they couldn't even avoid gender-stereotyped baby clothes, what other cultural baggage could they not avoid?

So the conclusion could be: sorry, ladies, you can't help yourself? You're educated only to be a good house wife... Your parents made you afraid to all things boys can do? It's too deterministic and pessimistic in my opinion. And again it sounds too much as an excuse to me. I'm not making electronic music because I'm a boy; just because I want to, sometimes

My wife knows how to repair the engine of our car. She knows what to ask for in the garage. She knows how to handle the car-repairman. And believe me, everybody is aware she's a woman Alright, I'm a much better cook then she is...

She's not interested in making electronic music, but if she was, she knows how to get the information she needs. She will not think: "Never mind, I'm just a girl".

I just want to say: women in electronic music, the world wants to hear you!

Shouldn't that be "hear from you"? What you are currently implying Wout, is that no one can hear any women.

I imagine that most women have more sense and that casually chatting about 'much ado about nothing' about electronic music on internet sites such as electro-music.com is a waste of time when most of them are too busy getting down to it by putting the actual music out!

Hahah.... interesting set of posts!
As to conditioning of children... I was raised in the 50s and there definitely was no real expectation that I would be good in science, etc. Just that I would marry a nice guy. Not really oppressive, but just a cultural norm of the 50's I guess.

When I raised my kids I was careful not to stereotype them with certain color clothes or certain toys... matter of fact all of us loved our Legos more than all the other toys put together. That's me, the Mom plus the kids.

However, the surrounding culture is another matter, and my daughter is mostly tech-illiterate while my 2 boys are engineers.

I can't explain it but there is just a lot of cultural modeling going on below the conscious level. Based on what their peers, relatives etc. are doing.

I was a little less influenced by peers growing up... because I was the school outcast/weirdo with hardly any friends. So if I played guitar, wrote novels or whatever...what difference did it make?

To the guy who wants to hear women in electro... THANKS. I'm teaching myself basic piano riffs/chops and I hope to be able to play some great music by next year. I'll post some soundclips when i feel they're good enough._________________The most important music equipment is what's in front of the instrument.

I still feel that everyone has *some* inherent desire for certain things. My niece for instance, with no other children in her existence, suddenly began cuddling her baby dolls and put them in things to rock them to sleep. She did not have a rocker of her own. Ever. She did this at about 9 months.

What I'm saying, is that *I* think there is equal opportunity in all of us to do things. However, I don't think it's simply social limitations that restrict *most* women to the kitchen and *most* men to day jobs and similar roles. I feel, as a population, we gravitated to these roles as parts of who we inherently are. Again, everyone's choices should be open to everything, not just women to traditional man roles, but the opposite as well. But I don't believe at all in being evangelical about stressing someone into a certain field because there seems to be a "shortage" of a certain gender or race in a given role.

I still feel that everyone has *some* inherent desire for certain things. My niece for instance, with no other children in her existence, suddenly began cuddling her baby dolls and put them in things to rock them to sleep. She did not have a rocker of her own. Ever. She did this at about 9 months.

What I'm saying, is that *I* think there is equal opportunity in all of us to do things. However, I don't think it's simply social limitations that restrict *most* women to the kitchen and *most* men to day jobs and similar roles. I feel, as a population, we gravitated to these roles as parts of who we inherently are. Again, everyone's choices should be open to everything, not just women to traditional man roles, but the opposite as well. But I don't believe at all in being evangelical about stressing someone into a certain field because there seems to be a "shortage" of a certain gender or race in a given role.

In the sixties of the last century these discussion was held a lot in The Netherlands. The only conclusion I ever come up with is: art is always very difficult to produce in a social context. But is social acceptation that important to the artist?

How about you, Papuna, can I encourage you to not be the kind of person who would laugh at Gay people or their children?

I do not lought at tham, cause in my country gays not may be marred, well I woud not lought at tham anyway but, when people are loughting, I said that, just gays must not have children till there is riks that there children will be discriminated

I wouldn't want to overlook the role of socialization either. Parents subtly influence their children's outlook, before they can even speak, by choices of clothing, toys, the encouragement or discouragement they give one hobby over another.

If boys prefer building blocks and toy cars and girls prefer dolls and E-Z-Bake ovens, how much of that is really their free choice? How much of it is due to the parents' subtle reinforcement of social and cultural norms of gender-appropriate behavior?

It's so hard for parents to overcome this too... my brother and his wife are pretty socially enlightened, but when their baby girl popped out a few years ago, it took no time at all for the pink clothes to show up. If they couldn't even avoid gender-stereotyped baby clothes, what other cultural baggage could they not avoid?

Yes, those are good questions and quite topical when we are talking about the relative lack of women on this site. It goes MUCH further then just the parents.

The son of a friend of mine went through a "wild animals" phase; making clawing gestures, growling, etc. Imagine his delight at finding out that he could get pants with animal skin patterns!

This went very well untill the (female) kindergarten teachers determined that those pants were too "feminine" for a boy, took them off and put him in different pants and complained to my friend and his partner. Fortunately they responded by immediately switching schools for their son.

I wonder a lot about this stuff, not just how it affects gender-identity but also sexual-identity and frankly a lot more places where a preference or choice in any matter also affects how ons's seen socially._________________Kassen

Yes, those are good questions and quite topical when we are talking about the relative lack of women on this site. It goes MUCH further then just the parents....

I also recall reading studies of classroom interactions that showed teachers, totally unconsciously, favoring boys in math classes over girls. Boys got called on more often and got better praise for right answers. I don't have a citation for that one handy.

This is a different citation with other interesting nuggets. It suggests perhaps if the other study focused on classrooms with male teachers, then the gender of the teacher could explain the bias toward male students.

Furthermore, when taught by a man, girls were more likely to report that they did not look forward to a subject, that it was not useful for their future, or that they were afraid to ask questions. This dynamic is strongest in science, where student reports indicate that female science teachers are far more effective in promoting girls’ engagement with this field of study. The estimated effects in the other two subjects pointed in the same direction but were statistically insignificant when examined separately.

Boys also had fewer positive reactions to their academic subject when taught by an opposite-gender teacher. In particular, when taught by a female teacher, boys were significantly more likely to report that they did not look forward to the subject. This effect appears to have been particularly pronounced when the female teacher was in history. The patterns for boys in other subjects are quite consistent with those observed in history, though I should again be cautious in drawing strong conclusions because many of the results fall short of conventional levels of statistical significance.

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But I was concerned about the likelihood that women teachers are assigned the less-promising math students. Administrators may think that women are better equipped to handle more difficult students or that men are better able to challenge the bright ones. If so, then it could appear that students benefit less from women teachers simply because they are given the lower-achieving ones in the first place.... If a student with a female math teacher also scores poorly in science, that would be a sign of a lower-performing student overall, not evidence that the gender of the teacher in the math class is having a negative impact.... And that is precisely what I found.

In contrast; I'm not sure what it's like at other universities but back when I was at the technical university of Delft there would be about 7 or 8 math students per year...... and you'd be lucky if more then one of those was a guy.

(everything else was male-dominated though and all of it depended to some degree on math)_________________Kassen

I also recall reading studies of classroom interactions that showed teachers, totally unconsciously, favoring boys in math classes over girls. Boys got called on more often and got better praise for right answers. I don't have a citation for that one handy.

James

In Sweden, awareness of this problem has made the pendulum swing to the other side, so that boys are now less likely to get good grades in school than girls. Overall, girls get higher grades than boys here.

I noticed something quite odd yesterday. On a whim and for the first time in a year or so I watched the national (as in by the state-funded channels) news on TV. There was a item there about a pyromaniac who was setting fires to garden-sheds in a small village and how hard to catch *this man* was.

Maybe I'm strange but I find this offensively sexist for what's supposed to be a quality and neutral news-source. Until somebody is caught and we know his/her sex it's a "person" and not a "man". I don't care if female pyromaniacs are unheard-off so far in documented history; this might be one. We might as well say "This jew hasn't been caught yet" or "This unusually dexterous parrot hasn't been caught yet"._________________Kassen

I do not lought at tham, cause in my country gays not may be marred, well I woud not lought at tham anyway but, when people are loughting, I said that, just gays must not have children till there is riks that there children will be discriminated

...this same logic would mean that (in many times and places), blacks, jews, muslims, catholics, athiests, etc should not have children because the children would be discriminated against....but there is much to be said for "fighting the good fight", and working towards acceptance from others rather than eliminating the minorities from the population (either by voluntary non-reproduction, or by hitler syle eugenics). in a culture where women are discriminated against, should one avoid having (or keeping) female children?

you may not be in a position where you can even have the oppurtunity to know well adjusted, successful gay people...never mind gay parents...but i would encourage you (if possible) to travel to places where this is possible. when you see that absent of a strong anti gay (and anti children of gay) cultural bias that gay parents are every bit as good at parenting as straight parents, and that the children are well adjusted and accepted....you will see that the problem is not with gays, but with those judging/not accepting/discriminating against gays. certainly here in the u.s. pre 1960's there was a lot of very open discrimination (to the point of lynching) against blacks....do we blame this on the blacks who were simply living their lives, or on those that chose to attack them?

I also recall reading studies of classroom interactions that showed teachers, totally unconsciously, favoring boys in math classes over girls. Boys got called on more often and got better praise for right answers. I don't have a citation for that one handy.

James

In Sweden, awareness of this problem has made the pendulum swing to the other side, so that boys are now less likely to get good grades in school than girls. Overall, girls get higher grades than boys here.

/Stefan

Girls get higher grades than boys in the United States, as well, and are more likely to get into college.

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